Report from the Annual Awards Dinner 2018

On 6 January 2018, friends of the Keats-Shelley Association of America met in Manhattan, New York, for a convivial evening of chatter and drinks, delicious food, and awards for our Distinguished Scholars.

This event takes place each year at the MLA convention. In 2018 the venue was the 3 West Club on 51st street. The previous days had seen dramatic weather hit the east coast – forecasters were calling the snow storm a ‘bomb cyclone’ because of a steep drop in atmospheric pressure.

So for those MLA delegates wandering the snowy streets of New York that evening, it was a delight to be welcomed into such warm atmosphere at the K-SAA Annual Awards Dinner. The evening began with a drinks reception where old friends reconnected, and many new introductions were made. I for one was pleased to meet several individuals in person for the first time.

This was an exciting occasion where postgraduates and early career researchers (such as myself) could discuss scholarship and just chat more generally with their peers and established academics. The mood aligned with the K-SAA’s aims: which is to share advancements and new initiatives in Romantic scholarship, particularly with regards to the study of Keats, the Shelleys, Byron, and their circles. The feeling of connecting with others who also work on a small – yet distinct and iconic – group of writers, and a distinctive period of history, was a really positive experience.

The awards were presented towards the end of the evening. It was a delight to be present as Lisa Vargo and Alan Bewell accepted their accolades and delivered thoughtful speeches to the attendees. They now join the ranks of many other eminent academics; a list of K-SAA Distinguished Scholars, as honored in previous years, can be found here.

If you are an early career researcher working on the writers of the Romantic period, you may wish to consider the support offered by the K-SAA, such as the Pforzheimer research grants for advanced graduate students, independent scholars, and untenured faculty members. The K-SAA also has an annual Essay Prize, and past winners can be seen here. This year, Anne McCarthy won the Essay Prize for her piece entitled ‘Reading the Red Bull Sublime’ in PMLA. The two 2018 Pforzheimer research grants went to Beatrice Turner, and as a joint prize to Olivia Loksing Moy and Marco Ramírez Rojas – the first winners to receive a grant for collaborative work.

There were several Romanticism-based panels at the MLA conference itself, such as ‘Frankenstein at Two Hundred: Attachment, Disability, and the Monstrous Body’, ‘Byron and Politics’, ‘Literary Adaptation as Democratic Exchange in the Romantic Period’ and ‘Poetry and Illustration in British Romanticism’ – a full list can be found here. The K-SAA sponsored two panels: ‘Romantics at Two Hundred: 2018 Reads 1818’ and ‘South Asia and Romanticism’.

The success of the event is a testament to the hard work of the organizer, Sonia Hofkosh, and the staff at the 3 West Club, who were very welcoming.

Here are a selection of photographs from the K-SAA dinner. If you were present, and have some of your own, please do send them to us. See you again next year!

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